One of the few remaining prominent Russian opposition figures and a vocal critic of the invasion of Ukraine has been jailed for 15 days, hours after describing the Kremlin as a “regime of murderers” on television.
Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr, who survived two near-fatal poisonings in Russia, was arrested outside his home late on Monday and was held in custody overnight for disobeying police.
It came after a CNN interview on Monday, during which he said: “I have absolutely no doubt that the Putin regime will end over this war in Ukraine – doesn’t mean it’s going to happen tomorrow.”
It was not clear why Mr Kara-Murza Jr was detained in the first place. However, the charge against him unveiled on Tuesday mentioned that he disobeyed police orders by “changing his course when he was told by a police officer to stop”.
Vadim Prokhorov, Mr Kara-Murza Jr’s lawyer, described the charges as a “novelty of Russian justice”.
“It would be really funny if it weren’t so sad,” he said.
Opposition figures jailed
Russian courts have jailed Kremlin critics over minor misdemeanours, handing out one two- week sentence after another in an apparent attempt to push them out of the country.
Lev Shlosberg, an opposition politician from north-west of Russia, described Mr Kara-Murza Jr as “one of the bravest politicians” and raised concerns about his safety.
“He survived two poisonings,” Mr Shlosberg tweeted. “I hope to see him safe and sound – and free soon.”
Mr Kara-Murza Jr, who went to Cambridge University, has been one of the Kremlin’s most scathing critics. He advocated for Western sanctions against Russian officials over human rights abuses years before Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, became an international pariah.
Just a few months after his friend Boris Nemtsov, a former top Kremlin official, was assassinated in 2015, Mr Kara-Murza Jr was poisoned with an unknown substance but made a recovery, despite a kidney failure.
The 40-year-old suffered an almost identical illness in 2017, spending several days in a medically induced coma.
Mr Kara-Murza Jr, whose family lives in the United States, has for years faced official harassment and threats from state media in Russia but continued to live there.
